The Golden Scarecrow eBook

“Yes—­four dolls I have. My mother
will give me another if I ask her. Would your
mother?”

“Yes,” said Barbara, untruthfully.

“That’s my governess, Miss Marsh, there,
with the green hat, that is. I’ve had her
two months.”

“Yes,” said Barbara, gazing with adoring
eyes.

“She’s going away next week. There’s
another coming. I can do sums, can you?”

“Yes,” again from Barbara.

“I can do up to twice-sixty-three. I’m
nine. Miss Marsh says I’m clever.”

“I’m seven,” said Barbara.

“I could read when I was seven—­long,
long words. Can you read?”

At this moment there arrived the green-hatted Miss
Marsh, a plump, optimistic person, to whom Miss Letts
was gloomily patronising. Miss Letts always distrusted
stoutness in another; it looked like deliberate insult.
Mary Adams was conveyed away; Barbara was bereft of
her glory.

But, rather, on that instant that Mary Adams vanished
did she become glorified. Barbara had been too
absurdly agitated to transform on to the mirror of
her brain Mary’s appearance. In all the
dim-coloured splendour of flame and mist was Mary
now enwrapped, with every step that Barbara took towards
her home did the splendour grow.

III

Then followed an invitation to tea from Mary’s
mother. Barbara, preparing for the event, suffered
her hair to be brushed, choked with strange half-sweet,
half-terrible suffocation that comes from anticipated
glories: half-sweet because things will, at their
worst, be wonderful; half-terrible because we know
that they will not be so good as we hope.

Barbara, washed paler than ever, in a white frock
with pink bows, was conducted by Miss Letts.
She choked with terror in the strange hall, where
she was received with great splendour by Mary.
The schoolroom was large and fine and bright, finer
far than Barbara’s room, swamped by the waters
of religion and politics. Barbara could only gulp
and gulp, and feel still at her throat that half-sweet,
half-terrible suffocation. Within her little
body her heart, so huge and violent, was pounding.

“A very nice room indeed,” said Miss Letts,
more friendly now to the optimist because she was
leaving in a day or two, and could not, therefore,
at the moment be considered a success. Her failure
balanced her plumpness.

Here, at any rate, was the beginning of a great friendship
between Barbara Flint and Mary Adams. The character
of Mary Adams was admittedly a difficult one to explore;
her mother, a cloud of nurses and a company of governesses
had been baffled completely by its dark caverns and
recesses. One clue, beyond question, was selfishness;
but this quality, by the very obviousness of it, may
tempt us to believe that that is all. It may
account, when we are displeased, for so much.
It accounted for a great deal with Mary—­but
not all. She had, I believe, a quite genuine